Several attempts have been made heretofore to simulate or otherwise reproduce the sounds of classic authentic pipe organs, by electronic means. Many of these attempts have succeeded to a limited extent, but none of the previous attempts to achieve this result have allowed an operator much flexibility in adjusting the "finishing" of the organ, by which the characteristics affecting the sound produced by the organ can be adjusted to a fine degree, either to render the organ consistent with a particular kind of music being played, or to adjust the sound characteristics produced by the organ to the room in which it is located in, or to achieve sound effects closely identical to a classic organ.
In the past, only relatively few characteristics of the organ sounds have been adjustable, with many others necessarily remaining fixed and invariant. This has made it impossible to adjust the fixed parameters, and impossible to "finish" the organ to suit precisely a given set of individual requirements.
Moreover, even the parameters which have been adjustable have had a limited range of adjustment, and so only slight variations from an arbitrary "norm" may be made. This also has prevented satisfactory finishing of the organ sounds.
In the past, the sound characteristics of an organ have been adjustable by means of a technician or the like, but this has been a complicated operation requiring the concerted action of three different persons. One person is necessary to play the organ, another person, stationed in the auditorium or listening space, is required to make judgments as to what sound conditions need to be altered and the way in which they should be altered, and a third person is needed as a technician to make the adjustments to electronic circuits in accordance with the instructions of the person in the auditorium.
It is therefore desirable to provide an apparatus capable of fine adjustments, over a wide range, of all of the characteristics making up organ sounds.
It is also desirable to provide an apparatus and method for allowing the finishing of an organ by a single person, using a remote control which is not only able to cause music to be played by the organ, but also has input means accessible to the operator by which the parameters affecting the quality of the music may be adjusted according to the judgments of the operator.
It is also desirable to provide an automatic tuning mechanism, so that when the frequency of the organ pipes changes in response to a change in temperature, the frequency of the electronically produced sounds will change accordingly, to maintain tuning with the organ pipes.